August 8, 2006
01:00 PM (EDT)

News Release Number: STScI-2006-38

Hubble Identifies Stellar Companion to Distant Planet

August 8, 2006: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has for the first time identified the
parent star of a distant planet (system name
OGLE-2003-BLG-235L/MOA-2003-BLG-53L) discovered in 2003 through
ground-based gravitational microlensing. Gravitational microlensing
occurs when a foreground star amplifies the light of a background star
that momentarily aligns with it. Follow-up observations by Hubble in
2005 separated the light of the slightly offset foreground star from the
background star. This allowed the host star to be identified as a red
dwarf star located 19,000 light-years away. The Hubble observations
allow for the planet's mass and the orbit from its parent red star to be
determined. In this artist's concept, the rings and moon around the gas
giant are hypothetical, but plausible, given the nature of the family of
gas giant planets in our solar system.